President Teddy Roosevelt Visits Texas, 1905

President Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. was the 26th President of the United States. He was born October 27, 1858 in Manhattan, New York and died January 6, 1919 in New York. At the time he became President, he was 42 years old making him the youngest person to take that office. Roosevelt had been Vice President under William McKinley who was only a few months into his second term as President when he died. He had been shot by assassin Leon Czolgosz in Buffalo, New York on September 6, 1901. President McKinley was rushed to the hospital but he died on September 14, 1901. Roosevelt was sworn in and completed the remainder of McKinley’s term. He was elected in 1904 to a second term. He was only a distant (5th) cousin to Franklin Delano Roosevelt. They were not closely related and their earliest common ancestor dates back about 100 years.

Roosevelt was well traveled, and had been to Texas several times before, and likely his first visit had occurred in 1877 on a trip with relatives. His best known prior visit was in 1898 when he was seeking recruits for the First United States Volunteer Cavalry Regiment, which became known as the Rough Riders. There were many more applicants, but the regiment numbered roughly 1,250 men. Though organized as cavalry, the unit served as infantry in the Spanish-American War.

Roosevelt had planned a third trip to Texas to take place soon after his inauguration ceremony. The trip was to include various stops in Texas including a reunion of the Rough Riders in San Antonio. Other stops were to include Dallas and Fort Worth, Sherman and many towns in between including Denison, Hillsboro, Waco, Temple, Austin, San Marcos, New Braunfels, Wichita Falls, Vernon and as far west as Texline. Crowd sizes mentioned ranged from 5,000 in Temple, 20,000 on the Capitol steps in Austin to assembled crowds of 30,000 or more.

Arriving in Dallas in early April, he spoke at a stand outside the Oriental Hotel to an estimated crowd of 25,000 to 30,000 people followed by a reception and presentation of gifts. His arrival in Fort Worth was marked by a motorcade and parade. Although the stop in Fort Worth was relatively short, it was very well planned. This cartoon appeared in the April 7, 1905 issue of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Mayor Thomas J. Powell of Fort Worth issued a proclamation announcing the Roosevelt visit to take place on Saturday, the 8th. The event was announced as the first visit of a sitting president. The Star-Telegram article named the conductor and engine number assigned to pull the three presidential coaches on the Missouri, Kansas and Texas tracks from Taylor, Texas to arrive in Fort Worth at 9:45 that morning. The article also listed the timing of the stations to be passed along the way. A “pilot” engine and train was to precede the presidential engine and cars until it reached Fort Worth. The pilot engine was to then pull to a siding and let the presidential train pass to arrive at the Texas and Pacific station.

Once there in Fort Worth, the President was honored with a parade attended by veterans of the Spanish-American War, the Grand Army of the Republic (Union veterans) and Confederate veterans along with local officials. Attendance was again strong. An estimated 20,000 people had assembled outside the Texas and Pacific station and another 10,000 along the parade route. After the short stay in Fort Worth, the presidential train was to take the Fort Worth and Denver tracks to Vernon. The article listed the remainder of the Texas leg of the trip as follows: April 8 – arrive in Vernon, April 13 – depart from Vernon en route to Colorado Springs, Colorado.

The Vernon location was timed to allow the owners of the two largest ranches in the area, Samuel Burk Burnett and W. T. Waggoner, to take the president on a wolf hunt, as part of the United States Department of Agriculture’s program to deal with a surplus predator population of grey wolves and coyotes. Those on the hunt were to be led by Jack Abernathy of Bosque County, well known for his ability to find and capture the animals, often using his own technique of catching them with his hands. Abernathy made his living selling the animals to zoos and entertainment companies. Chosen for the hunt was a place just into Indian Territory known as the Big Pasture, which the ranchers had leased from the Comanche tribe.

The party took a train from Vernon to Frederick, in Indian Territory. Part of the motivation for the visit was to acquaint the President with Quanah Parker and the Comanches who also financially benefited from the leases. In her book “Electra II” about Electra Waggoner Biggs, author Roze McCoy Porter devotes several pages to the wolf hunt. Quanah was already acquainted with Roosevelt having ridden in the inaugural parade earlier that year. Quanah, three of his wives and two children joined the party. The hunt was successful with Abernathy catching 15 wolves. The President stayed and enjoyed the hunt for five days, camping and riding horseback. The visit ended with the assembled group racing by horseback across country to Frederick where Roosevelt gave a short speech before heading on to Colorado for a bear hunt.

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President Roosevelt was married twice. His first wife Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt died in 1884. They were the parents of one daughter, Alice. He then married Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt about six years later. They were the parents of one daughter, Ethyl, and four sons, Theodore Jr., Kermit, Quentin and Archibald Bullock.

Roosevelt was eligible to serve one more term as President and he entered the race for the 1912 presidential election. Late in the campaign, on October 14, 1912, he was making a campaign speech in Milwaukee, Wisconsin when an attempt was made on his life. A would-be assassin by the name of John Schrank fired a pistol at Roosevelt as he was speaking. By chance, the bullet fist struck his eyeglass case and then penetrated a folded fifty page copy of the speech he was delivering before penetrating his shirt and passing into his chest. Though he was shot, Roosevelt realized he had not been badly wounded, and finished his speech after a pause. Roosevelt continued to campaign but lost the presidential election to Woodrow Wilson.

The bullet had been slowed down to the point that it lodged in his chest muscle. X-rays revealed that it did not penetrate any further. His doctors and they agreed that it might do more harm to try and remove the bullet, so it was left in place. The shooter, Schrank, was found guilty by reason of insanity and was ordered to be institutionalized. He remained so for the next twenty-nine years until he died in 1943.

The former President’s health declined as he got older. He died on January 6, 1919, at the age of 60. He had been reportedly suffering from inflammatory rheumatism which contributed to his difficulty breathing. He had also recently been dealing with the loss of his son Quentin in World War I. Quentin was one of four sons serving in the war and had been shot down in his aircraft during the 2nd Battle of the Marne in 1918. Theodore Roosevelt was buried in Youngs Memorial Cemetery in Oyster Bay, New York. His wife Edith survived him another 29 years and was buried beside him.

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